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back to article BOFH: The secret gentlemen's club

It's mid afternoon and the PFY and I are sneaking around the building in pursuit of the IT director because he's acting funny... [READER: DEGAUSS NOW FOR FLASHBACK REALISM!] ...10 minutes ago... "Right, so you just want this signed then?" the director asks, scribbling blindly at the bottom of the page. "Okay, now if you'll …

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  1. Bruno Girin
    Thumb Up

    Brilliant!

    BOFH: as ever the highlight of an otherwise boring Friday.

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Librarians

    What happened to the Librarians?

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  3. Lee
    Thumb Up

    Classic

    The old Sh*t in the handbasin.....made my day

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Help please

    I can't find the degauss button on any of my LCD flat panels or laptop displays.

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  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Degauss ???

    Where the heck is the degauss button on my flat screen?

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  6. Andrew Hood

    First in, but

    no dead bodies. BOFH and PFY are starting to get a bit slack, must be some sort of holiday season.

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  7. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    I'm first!

    I guess the rest of you are all still stuck in the smallest room…

    The Heffner style dressing gown please

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  8. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    Blackballed...

    "If there's any upset - however small - they'll find out from the card that I've been in here and I'll be blackballed."

    Brownballed more like ;-)

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  9. Red Bren
    Coat

    Degauss?

    How exactly do I degauss an LCD monitor? Surely no BOFH worth his salt would still be using a CRT?

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  10. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    You promised us LIBRARIANS!

    You did! YOU PROMISED!

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  11. Alan W. Rateliff, II
    Paris Hilton

    BOFH using CRTs, @Red Bren

    Without the radiation from a CRT, how else is your standard BOFH supposed to maintain a tan?

    LCDs will bring about a new breed of gleaming white admins, coders, and the like. Shame, that.

    Paris, for bringing about a new breed.

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  12. Peter Leech Silver badge

    re: Degauss?

    Who throws away a perfectly good CRT :) My one just became part of a multi monitor setup. No point ditching it while its still working.

    If/when it stops working then I am getting a forklift in.

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  13. Sam
    Coat

    Hang on a mo..

    "Degauss", and a while back we had "Pound notes".....Is someone recycling their stories?

    The Time Lord cape, ta.

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  14. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    I WANTED........

    Librarians <sulk>

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  15. Nicholas Ettel
    Paris Hilton

    @ Alan W. Rateliff, II

    "Paris, for bringing about a new breed."

    Are you suggesting that I breed with that?! I may as well jump nude into a cess pool... and the video of such debauchery would undoubtedly end up on the internet. OTOH, if she were somehow to spawn my offspring I would have an in to the Hilton fortune.

    Tempting... but I'll pass. :S

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  16. Rosuav
    Thumb Up

    LCD? CRT? Hmm

    Let's see. Around here I have one LCD and two CRTs. Yeah, so maybe LCDs are better. But that means nobody wants their old CRTs, so I can pick them up for a song. Helps when you're on a shoestring budget. (Have you ever tried to sing a shoestring?)

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  17. JakeyC

    Degauss

    Never had a use for it until now, great effect.

    I have a dual-screen set up with one LCD and a CRT above, best of both worlds.

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  18. Mitch Russell
    Boffin

    I've still got a tube at home

    It's on a K6-233 that dual boots Ubuntu and DOS 6.2. for an old BOFH, you can't beat the DOS games such as OMF...

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  19. Matthew Bartlett

    Degauss on LCD? Just use...

    The auto setup feature. Not quite the same but just assume it it some low budjet effect.

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  20. David S

    @Nicholas Ettel

    You so would.

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  21. Simon
    Thumb Up

    Degauss, ooh found it!

    I had to go through a whole load of onscreen menus for this monitor but I eventually found it, kewl.

    Hmm, judging by the other comments, maybe its time I asked for a newer monitor...

    <action>Pats CRT</action>

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  22. Darkside
    Alien

    Librarians

    Please can we have a Librarian icon?

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  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    No blood, but thinking on a long-term perspective...

    You know, that place would be ideal for trapping someone in over the weekend... guess our heroes are already working on the necessary mods...

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  24. Nathanael Bastone
    Thumb Up

    @degauss

    yes ok, its outdated... but I challenge Reg readers to find a replacement that works as well as that. ... oh the hours of fun we used to have with degauss back in the day...

    "I need to use that computer for a minute"

    "I'm busy working, come back later"

    "Ah, but this one is broken, [click] see? you gonna fix it are you?"

    "uhh... no, I'm too busy. I'll come back later, you fix it..."

    ahh... memories...

    Excellent story this week!

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  25. A J Stiles

    Executive Washroom

    They really actually had such a thing at my last place of employment.

    There were no fancy locking systems or anything. The danger for any pleb daring to use it was always in *exiting*; since, being a toilet door, there was no glass panel and thus no way to know who might greet you on your emergence.

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  26. Adam
    Coat

    @Nicholas Ettel

    Sorry, but I think you'll find even that's not worth it - her Grand Dad's changed his will to stop he getting her grubby little hands on the Hilton Empire. She'll probably always be rich, but not THAT rich!

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  27. Peter Kay

    Nothing wrong with a good degauss on a CRT

    Multiple resolution support, great colour rendition, fast response time, uniform colours from any angle (ok, perhaps not uniform colour rendition across the surface if the calibration is a bit off) and a CRT isn't actually less power efficient than a large-ish TFT.

    CRT is pretty much dead - at least from the point of view of finding a large new one - but finding a TFT that has no dead pixels and has great colour rendition, good viewing angles, excellent response times, good black level, decent contrast, multiple inputs, a decent internal scaler, a scaler that will handle odd resolutions and negative sync, sync on green - well, it's still a bit of a minefield.

    I'm waiting a couple of years before I splash out on a large TFT - my CRTs will last me till then. Who knows, maybe OLED will be a reality by then.

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  28. Trygve Henriksen
    Thumb Up

    DOS? OMF?

    Sheesh!

    OMF runs just fine under OS/2, so there's no need to pollute your machine like that...

    Love that soundtrack...

    Almost as much as watching one of those blasted pyromaniac robots fly into the electric fence after I give it a few kicks with my Jaguar...

    My Gravis Analog Pro is getting old. Anyone know of a good replacement that can be hacked to fit the left hand?

    (I'm a size small/medium, though... )

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  29. Andy Brown
    Thumb Up

    CRTs

    I've still got a pair of high-res CRT screens on my PC. Those and the high-spec graphics cards help keep the room nice and warm in winter :)

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  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Next Step...

    Conversion of the "Palace" to something useful, and lock others out.

    And this after having a useless one hour "all hands" meeting....

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  31. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @ CRT

    What BOFH worth it's salt DOESN'T own a CRT?

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  32. Gerrit Tijhof
    Go

    CRT

    because they _do_ hit harder.

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  33. call me scruffy
    Paris Hilton

    Re: BOFH using CRTs

    It's a bit much using the word "breed" to describe the new pasty-faced model of admin. SInce they won't get the chance to breed.

    The CRT is a solid indication of a REAL MANS computer doing REAL MANS work, swap it for a TFT and you may as well be some spotty nerd with NHS glasses on work experience.

    P.H. Because oggeling her is the closest that type will get to breeding. EVER.

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  34. Nexox Enigma

    CRTs

    I've got a 24 inch wide screen CRT that I picked up for $200. It runs 2304x1440 resolution at 75Hz refresh. Plus its got the most amazing colors and clarity that I've ever seen.

    Sure it weighs 40+ kg, but I've got a sturdy desk.

    I'd honestly much rather have a CRT than an LCD, unless space was an issue. Last I checked a 21 inch CRT that will do 2048x1536 at 85Hz refresh was just about the same price as a cheap 24 inch LCD, which runs at lower specs and actually consumes just about the exact same amount of energy.

    LCDs are toys for children. People that care about image quality will still go with the proven tech of a CRT. Unless you have a laptop, then you've just got to settle.

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  35. Matt Bucknall

    A PIC!?!?!

    I'd rather use an AVR any day!

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  36. fon

    *female* admins do exist!!

    they may not be recognizable as such, but... :) :)

    no-one ever seen 'waynes world' ???

    mating call: is that a *unix* manual under your arm??? <snerk>

    and yes, lets the 'Lusers' have the crummy CRTS..

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  37. amanfromMars Silver badge
    Pirate

    How very UnGallant

    "Tempting... but I'll pass. :S" ..... By Nicholas Ettel Posted Friday 7th March 2008 14:20 GMT

    Frightened of Failure, Nicholas, always Sorts the Men out from the Boys. Paris runs dDeep just in case you didn't know....after all, she is a Hilton and a Woman.

    Shame that Mommy and Daddy don't Realise the Potential.

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  38. tony trolle
    Heart

    toilet fun

    Our old exec toilet/restroom was used a lot by the night shift(y) managers for "meetings". One weekend we moved a PIR unit closer and drilled a small hole in the casing; a few weekends later we made a bogus exec memo about cameras and illegal toilet use; photocopied on the VP machine (telltail tipex marks on glass). Then left it in a unlocked department head's office overnight removing before Monday morning.

    There was a few CV's being updated that week. :-P

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  39. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @ Andrew Hood

    No, but there was a dead otter in the wash basin ! 3- @

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  40. Steve Medway
    Joke

    CRT's rule ;-)

    CRT's are perfect, any good BOFH has at least three 24" widescreen Sony's on their desk, the reason is obvious:-

    To support the weight of big CRT's you need a very strong desk.... Strong desks are heavy..... People don't like moving really heavy monitors and really heavy desks. Someone could get hurt ;-)

    Choose your spot in the office and keep it when all around you is being moved for no particular reason or when a new IT Manager wants to 'shake things up a bit'.

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  41. Luiz Abdala
    Go

    I LOVE my chunky CRT display.

    I can squeeze a 1600x1200 resolution from it, (and always could, of course) since 1989, so why should I change? I won´t expend some thousand quid to buy a LCD that can do pretty much what this one can do already, but not running at 85Hz when running @ 1280x1024, at a near-zero latency.

    Not to mention the previously stated fact that these babies claim for a sturdy desk, where you can shag the secretary without fear of collapsing the table. Or the fact that she weighs LESS than the aforementioned.

    Or that you can still prove fit and young enough for your job if you can carry your own monitor without the aid of a trolley, and probably got stronger than many gym-goers due the fact that you have to carry 15 (I said FIFTEEN) of these up and down 12 flights of stairs every time a manager decided to redecorate the office (every 3 months, that is), because they won´t let you wait for the single building elevator, without calling you a slacker.

    Or the skills you acquire with dangling and snag-tendencious VGA cables that come attached on them, that enable you to carry all remaining cables in a typical desktop configuration (including keyboard and mouse) around your neck, without ever tripping on them.

    Thanks to degauss, I avoided sending 3 of these to repair, because the colors were all messed up, and nobody had a clue of what was wrong. The three stoges had fluorescent lamps on their desks, and never turned the monitors off.

    BOFH still rocks!

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  42. Toby
    Coat

    finding the way out

    escape from the crimson room

    http://www.fasco-csc.com/works/crimson/crimson_e.php

    then the viridian room

    then the white room

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  43. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    oooh dear.

    My gentle homage resides in the link I'm about to proffer. I'd rather offer it to the BofH as a sign of loyalty than to have it sued off me later.

    http://ronnasty.deviantart.com/art/Rotten-Ron-Tales-from-Trenches-79684732

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  44. Carol Yates
    Boffin

    You wanted librarians?

    Here we are...but you can't afford us. <snigger>

    BA, MCLIP.

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  45. Alex X

    Degaussing LCDs

    For all those asking, there's a special way of degaussing LCDs. Now, some of the more expensive models have a degauss button, but with the normal ones, it's a bit trickier than that. You need to find a magnet roughly 1/10th the size of your monitor. Hence, if you have a 20 inch LCD, you need a 2 inch magnet and so on.

    Now, ordinarily you'd need to put the magnet as close to the center of the monitor (while having the monitor and pc turned on, of course). However, this won't work in 2008 since it's a leap year. Leap years occur during years when the Earth's orbit around the Sun is a whole day longer. This causes the Earth's magnetic field to be a bit off, so unless you have a really strong magnet, you're going to need to give it a bit of help.

    Nothing simpler thought. Just take a paperclip, straighten it, and if you can stick the paperclip into your computer's power supply JUST as you touch the magnet to the center of your LCD, BAM! Instant degauss.

    Enjoy hours of wholesome fun.

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